How Beethoven can teach a deaf child musicality

Deaf people can learn to appreciate music in a multitude of ways, through vibrations, gestures, bodily movements, rhythms and by reading music from the printed page

By Kate Connolly / The Guardian, COLOGNE, Germany

Sliding on their sock-clad feet, a gaggle of children squeeze themselves under the belly of the Steinway as Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes invites them to place their palms on the soundboard and feel the vibrations.

When Andsnes launches into a stormy cadenza from the second movement of Beethoven’s Third Concerto, the children in their makeshift den squeal with delight and surprise. Some point to the pianist’s quivering trouser leg and his shiny black shoes pressing on the gold pedals. Others shiver at the strength of the vibrations that run through the gleaming grand piano into their bodies — a sensation that 11-year old Arijan Zagragja later describes by producing a loud and elongated “brrrrrr” while running his fingers over his body in a rippling motion.

All of the eight to 11-year-olds present in the Cologne Philharmonic have some sort of hearing disability and several of them, such as Arijan, are profoundly deaf. The children have been taken under the wings of the musicians of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, who, together with Andsnes, have launched “Feel the Music,” which aims to open up the world of music to hearing-impaired children across Europe.

“When the idea was first mooted, I thought what can they possibly get out of the music, but after experiencing how the children react to the music I quickly realized I had been far too closed-minded,” Andsnes said.

Studies show musical vibrations can have as much of an impact on the brain as real sounds and that exposing deaf children to music early on can stimulate their brain’s music centers. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Andsnes have teamed up with Paul Whittaker, a profoundly deaf musician, who runs the UK charity Music and the Deaf.

“It’s very rare that deaf children get the chance to work together with professional musicians, and especially with an orchestra,” Whittaker said.

“Not only does it open up a new world to children with hearing handicaps, it also takes musicians out of their comfort zones, and makes them think anew about how they hear and understand music,” he says.

Deafness, he stresses, “is no barrier to making or appreciating music. You can appreciate musicality in a multitude of ways, through vibrations, gestures, body movements, rhythms and by reading music on the printed page.”

Feel the Music is part of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra’s “Beethoven Journey” concert series, which it is taking to 40 European cities between now and 2015. Part of the project examines the way Beethoven’s own deafness — which began when he was in his 20s and left him profoundly deaf and his career as a virtuoso pianist in tatters — not only brought him to the brink of despair, but greatly influenced his compositions.

“When he wrote for the piano, the deaf Beethoven became obsessed with being able to feel the vibrations, so he created lots of trills — the fast repeated notes next to each other. He also used long stretches of pedal to create huge vibrations of sound, as well as extreme registers, very high up and low down notes,” Andsnes said.

He believes these techniques make Beethoven’s music more communicable to those with impaired hearing.

During the Cologne workshop, the pianist furnishes the children leaning on and sitting under the piano with plenty of trills and long pedal sections.

“When he presses a key, the hammer strikes a string which then vibrates,” said Fabian Schurf, 10, who has been profoundly deaf since birth.